[bencpeters]

Don't forget that in some areas of the country, we get snow pretty regularly - in my experience back-up camera lenses get completely covered by road grit in snowy zones pretty quickly - makes it hard to rely on for something critical like highway visibility for a few months a year.

[RealGeek]

It is not an issue at all. It happened 3 times with me during the whole winter, and I quickly wiped and cleaned the lens. The windows and mirrors get dirty too, we often clean them.

[dfc]

When you say "it happened three times" this whole winter do you mean "it snowed three times"? I live in Syracuse, NY. We get 100+ inches every year, so I have some experience with the slushy salt+sand mixture that covers everything near a road in the winter. You can clean your car all you want but as soon as you spend 2 minutes driving a lot of the salt+sand+slush is back. How do you clean the lens while driving?

[RealGeek]

I live in NY as well, and it snowed every week most of the winter. My camera lens got dirty or blocked by ice on only three occasions. Mostly, the camera is clear even when windows are dirty.

Is cleaning camera lens for a total of 3 times in a year a big deal? We clean our cars a lot more than that.

[dfc]

You are correct 3 times in one winter is not a lot. I am saying that 3 times in one winter is not an accurate estimate of how often I would have to clean the camera. How much snow did you receive in your area of NY? Did you get half the snow Syracuse did?

  City       2013-14     Avg.
  ----------------------------
  Syracuse    131.6      123.8
  Buffalo     128.7       94.7
  Rochester   112.3       99.5
  Binghamton   84.4       83.4
  Albany       71.1       59.1

from: http://goldensnowball.com/

[crygin]

Seriously. My entire rear window is unusable after five minutes on the road this winter, no idea how any rear-facing camera could function.